A cone of red viscera was all that remained of the oddly shaped crocodile governing this strange section of the palace. Mickie stood at the origin of this bloody spread, staring at the remains as he supported a leg sluicing blood. It was odd how empty he felt at the sight. There was no victory, no vindication at having freed the metallic guards. He felt no disgust in himself either, no shame in having killed such a helpless being, one that had made no true capability to strike at him. A pinch of pain from his skinned calf brought on a wince. There was a light cough from the desk nearby.
‘Ehem. Well kid, that was uh, that was something. The old blob had it coming though, no doubt.’
Mickie turned to his demon companion.
‘Miz-Mag, are the guards free?’
‘My friend, have I failed you yet?’
Small red feet danced across a touchpad screen and a series of windows flickered into life on every display in the room. They were all camera feeds, strange seeing as Mickie could not recall noting any surveillance throughout his travels. The scenes were of metal giants, motionless in the halls of Administration. There was no noise, tough he could recall the sound of the sorrow that must now be filling the halls. As he watched, workers began filtering from their offices and hobbling over to the guards, offering their strange and melodic support. With eyes tracing along the feeds Mickie stumbled across a separate sight, far grislier than a song.
The scene was of a control room, blood actively splattering the walls as a metal giant shredded a trio of screaming imps to pieces. Further observation of the various displays confirmed this was not an isolated case. Across the maze controllers were being butchered with terrifying ferocity. Mickie could only guess that the creatures had realised if their masters did not perish they might lose themselves once more. His thoughts were all but confirmed as one guard finished with the imps and then started scrapping the screens and systems on display, ensuring none could be used again.
Killing the croc had brought nothing but a hollow in his gut, though seeing these odd creatures secure their freedom provided a measure of grim satisfaction. Mickie opened his mouth to question their next steps when another display caught his eye. The small window portrayed another control room, one distinct for a lack of active carnage. Instead, there was simply a darkened room with a ring desk, occupied only by a coating of gore and a dead metal mantis. It was the room he currently occupied, displayed live and apparently without him in it. Mickie turned to the spot the camera should have been nestled but noticed nothing out of the ordinary. They must have been extraordinarily small or well hidden.
‘Ah dear boy, I see you have noticed the impact of my abilities rubbing off on you. No need to thank me, your companionship is reward enough.’
Miz-Mag had clearly noted his interest in their room, grinning devilishly as it skipped across the desk towards him. Mickie attempted to formulate a snarky response but his thoughts felts sluggish. He attempted to turn towards his companion and stumbled, dizzy.
‘Ah, my friend. I believe you are running low on vital juices. We should probably get that taken care of.’
The wound to his leg was strangely painless, though the threat it posed Mickie was very real. Miz-Mag directed him towards a plain door against one of the walls. It had completely escaped his notice up until now. Through the door was a room that could only be described as a studio apartment. There was a small bed against a wall and fridge beside a kitchenette. On the far side of the room thick curtains were hung from floor to ceiling, pulled tightly shut so whatever lay beyond was hidden from view. Mickie’s increasingly befuddled mind wondered if the head administrator considered itself to be working from home or to just have a short commute. The demon on his shoulder directed him to the bed.
‘Kid you got to tie off that leg, use the sheets.’
He attempted to grab the sheet but found he was still holding his gun. Frowning, Mickie wished the weapon away. And it vanished. Apparently, he could unsummon the item as well. Handy that. The thin top sheets of the small bed tore easily under his hands. He fumbled a makeshift tourniquet around his upper thigh, pulling tight to cut off the blood flow. Darkness was seeping into his vision, shadows swimming in from the periphery. With the knot secured Mickie collapsed back onto the bed with a sigh. Miz-Mag moved to stand by his head.
‘That should sort it out. Take a rest until it’s fixed. I can feel the pull kid, I’ll try and stick around but I’ll probably be out of it fairly soon.’
Mickie gave a bleary nod with drooping eyelids. As his consciousness faded a thought stuttered through his addled mind. If he had died back on earth only to end up in hell, what happened when someone died in hell? He hoped they found themselves somewhere better, though all he could think of was oblivion streak with light.
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Awareness was an unwelcome worm in Mickie’s awakening mind. The pleasant veil of sleep was torn aside as his current circumstances clicked home. Lying in ragged garments on a dead creature’s bed that was far too small for him. Despite his abrupt alertness Mickie did not immediately rise, instead lying in a hapless torpor. Having finally obtained a chance to stop and rest he found the despair of his circumstance waiting. Instead of confronting the feeling Mickie pushed it aside and rose slowly, taking a moment to examine his leg. The makeshift tourniquet had come lose during his rest and the disturbing amount of blood in the bedsheets indicated he had not healed easily. His life blood however was once more ensconced behind a pristine layer of skin, without even a scar to show for his ordeal. Judging by the extended silence of Mickie’s awakening he guessed Miz-Mag had pulled its vanishing act again. Who knew how long it might take the demon to reappear once more. Unwilling to move on without his guide Mickie instead stood and moved to the fridge. He had not eaten since arriving, and while he did not feel particularly hungry some food would be a welcome distraction. The small fridge occupying the room was filled with a variety of surprisingly normal foods. Plastic takeout containers sat on the shelves, half full with various dishes. Mickie picked out a curry before shifting to a noodle dish upon realising there was no rice stored. There was no microwave, though he managed to find a draw containing nothing but spoons. The cold dish went down quickly, accompanied by water taken from a bottle in the fridge. Its flavour was bland and unappealing, though the weight of the food within his stomach was pleasant.
With the meal eaten Mickie moved to the curtains covering the far wall, eager to remain distracted. He closed in on the thick drapes, taking hold of the fabric and pushing the covering aside. Cold blue spilt through the widening gap, burning his eyes, and casting sharp shadows throughout the small room. Mickie squinted into the glow, blinking as sight slowly returned. Beyond the curtain was a huge window, one that made up the entire wall. The glass was spotless on his side but marred with icy frost on the other. He peered through to behold a wasteland. The space was clearly a cavern of some kind, though one unlike any Mickie had seen before. The craggy ceiling was so far above him it might as well have been the sky. Strange lights of ghostly white and blue glinted up there, painful to look at as they illuminated the cave in a chilly glow. The world outside was coloured same as the lights above, a frozen sea of white and blue that stretched to the horizon. Peaks of ice that could be mountains dotted jagged plains devoid of any life. Mickie found himself entranced by the utter stillness of it. There was no sign of movement, no animals darting from cover, no trees shifting in the wind. Just Ice. In the distance he could make a large fields of dark shapes, upright with vague protrusions stretching out at odd angles. Trees perhaps?
As he watched the unchanging wastes Mickie’s observation gradually shifted to introspection. He had been running the knife’s edge for the past day, desperate to stay ahead of internal mania and bloodthirsty monsters. With a moment of silence, the fact of his own death settled upon his mind like a veil, cool as the ice beyond the window. He could remember dying. The sound of gentle sobbing. The echoing emptiness of it. That hollow inside reflected the cavern without, still and cold. Had Mickie truly deserved hell? He was no delusional fool. The life that proceeded his demise had not been one of virtue. But to be sent so low. What would he find if he continued to climb? Would he see people he had known, meet enemies and friends again in death. What would they think of him? Of what he made of himself. The thought terrified him more than any beast. The weight of expectations he had failed to live up to. It was almost enough to make him give up on escape. He could hide here, in the palace. Live like a rat in the walls with his demon guide.
Movement from beyond the window drew Mickie from his reverie. An odd shape was gliding across the icy plains. Rounded like a pill and supported by six legs. It was hard to gauge the size of the thing without a frame of reference, though he guessed it to be the size of a truck. The pill approached a section of the palace outside his own view, eventually passing from sight and leaving the surrounds empty once more. Mickie mulled over the strange creature. It had a shiny carapace that was more metallic than organic. Perhaps it had been robotic, built to withstand the inhospitable conditions outside the castle. It made him wonder what was building all the machines he had encountered.
There was a sound from within the room, a light scratching that might as well have been a gunshot in the silence. Mickie whipped his head around to source the disturbance but found nothing amiss within the apartment. He slowly panned the room when the noise came again. The origin was above him, an air conditioning vent set into the ceiling of the bedroom. Unease began to creep up his spine as the scratching grew more urgent, increasing in volume. With a click the vent swung open on unseen hinges, revealing a dark that hid the nascent intruder. Mickie took a cautious step away and called his gun, the dark eyed leopard head resting at the ready. A long, thin metallic limb emerged from the vent. Then another, and another. A spherical body emerged, a shiny orb with eight spindly legs attached. It was as if someone had taken a child’s drawing of a spider and made a robot out of it. A single spherical lens rotated and shifted atop the body, moving freely to scan the entire room.
Mickie stood stock still, knowing that it most likely could not see him, though if it was like the mantis, it would be able to hear him. The small metal critter skittered around the ceiling with little effort, camera lens swivelling in a search for life. It moved down a wall and began a physical sweep of the room, darting under the bed and over countertops. Mickie decided to try and sneak away while the creature was busy in its search. If he could make it back into the control tunnels, he could probably find a way out of admin. The moment he lifted a foot from the ground the little spider froze in place on the floor. With a foot already in motion Mickie inevitably completed his step and the moment he touched ground once more the spider darted straight for him. Mickie did not curse or swear at his unfortunate detection. Instead he raised his gun and fired at the critter.
Normally the rotating shotgun had such a large spread that it was impossible to miss at close range. The leopard’s shot was more condensed than the others however, and the small spider was scarily fast. The dark blast from the weapon took off two of the back legs on one side of the robot, though the creature didn’t even slow at the loss. Then it was on him, spindly metal appendages stabbing into his flesh as the creature latched onto his leg in response to a poorly aimed kick. Mickie panicked, batting at the spider with his gun as it bound itself to his thigh. It took multiple heavy blows before the robot popped free, leaving numerous small punctures. His gun hissed and thunked, finishing its reload with the wolf’s head on top. Before the spider could right itself Mickie stepped forward and blasted it into metal chunks.
The whole confrontation had been sudden and lasted little more than ten seconds. That did not mean there was any time to delay as Mickie set off for the door. If more of those spiders showed up, he needed to be long gone so they didn’t detect him. He made it approximately three steps before his right leg abruptly gave out and Mickie crumpled unceremoniously to the floor. A sudden lethargy had swamped him, turning his body into a wet noodle of nonfunctional muscle. Mickie attempted to stand, to move his arms, to even turn his head from its uncomfortable angle against the floor. Nothing worked. His thoughts started slipping, twisting from his grasp to leave behind an abstractive torrent of colour and recollected sensation. Mickie realised he could hear his own heart beating. Slow thumps with a physicality that shook him. The was something else too, a continuous rhythmic scratching that underlay the thudding of his heart. The rasping got louder, and he noticed a shiny glimmer flicker past in his peripheral vision. Attempting to concentrate on it was impossible as his sight had gotten so very blurry. A distant pressure fell onto his back followed by a sharp pinch of pain. Then the world faded to black, and Mickie went with it.
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Sensation struck like a pillar of lightning. Mickie gasped a breath as muscles seized and his heart pounded. He writhed with the feeling but found movement was all but impossible. Something was pinning his limbs down, trapping him flat against a hard surface. There was a ring of bright lights directly above him, blinding him to the details of his new confinement. Beyond the light came a rapid series of clicks alongside the whir of servos. Mickie attempted to call out but only managed a gasping cough through his dry mouth.
‘Ah I see you have responded to the stimulus. I can hear your breath, and the beating of your heart.’
The feminine voice was soft and dead as salted earth. There was no inflection to the words, spoken from seemingly every direction at once.
‘Can you speak creature?’
Mickie swallowed dryly.
‘W-where am I?’
More whirring clicks from above.
‘So, the creature does speak. Tell me then, how do you hide from my eyes?’
Mickie ignored the question, pushing against his bonds.
‘What am I doing here? Let me go.’
‘The creature will answer, not ask.’
There was a blur of movement from above, followed by a brief prick to his thigh. He caught a glimpse of a thin, articulated metal appendage emerging from the ring of lights before fire burned through his nerves. Mickie screamed in agony as his body seized with pain, unable to think, unable to breath. He spent infinite moments locked in abject torment before the pain receded like a tide, leaving Mickie drooling and gasping limp against his bonds.
‘You will answer the questions creature.’
Mickie did not respond immediately, taking time in silence to reassemble his addled mind. The image of a robotic spider crystalised as he dredged murky memories. With the spider came the realisation that he had been drugged, captured, and strapped to a table. By what then? He hardly dared to breath, whatever was beyond those lights seemed far to trigger happy with pain. His captor had just mentioned being unable to see him, did that mean it was a robot?
‘Speak creature. Or you will suffer further.’
For something that could not see him, this mysterious voice seemed to have a good understanding of his general condition. Something dug painfully into his thigh once more. Mickie hissed out a breath, unwilling to risk the pain again he opened his mouth.
‘Stop. Please. Stop.’
The pressure remained against his thigh.
‘Answer the question. How do you avoid my sight.’
Mickie hesitated, desperate to avoid the burning pain but unwilling to spill his secrets to the denizens of this terrible place. A painful jolt ran through him, originating where the metal appendage rested against his leg. His hesitation faltered.
‘No cameras can see me. Only living creatures as far as I can tell.’
There was silence briefly from above. Then the whir of mechanical parts preluded a shape emerging from within the light. It was another metal limb, far thicker than the first and supporting a large camera on the end. Like an unnatural facsimile of an ostrich the long, articulated limb stretch out to peer closely at Mickie, camera lens shifting as it attempted to focus.
‘Only organics. How curious.’
The voice hardly sounded interested, let alone curious.
‘You will tell me how you achieved this.’
Mickie glared up at the lens defiantly. It had been the uncertainty of his situation that had broken his will before. Know what his captor was bolstered his resolve to talk no further. The robotic jailor before him seemed to sense this, because it was hardly a moment before fire tore through his insides. Mickie writhed in agony for what felt like an age, his body went from twitching to seizing up completely. It was only after his mouth filled with the taste of blood that the torture ceased, and the robotic arm withdrew once more into the light. There were a few moments in which Mickie thought he had gone blind from the assault on his senses. However, his vision did return with a gradual, fuzzy reluctance. Mickie coughed and dribbled blood onto the metal table, attempting to speak, to ward off another strike. If the robot zapped him like that again he would die. He couldn’t take it again. The robot had retreated into the light, content with silence as he groaned and gurgled towards coherence once more. Mickie doubted he would be walking away from this table if he talked and his tormentor uncovered everything it wanted. The robot could not be reasoned with, it would take what it required from him them dispose of the remainder. A cold calculus that Mickie could recall from the worst kinds of people when he was alive.
‘You will speak.’
Mickie tried to form a response to the prompt but only managed a moaning gurgle through a strained and spasming jaw. The robot did not take this as a reluctance to answer luckily, instead falling into silence once more as he desperately attempted to form words. It must have realised the shock had almost been too much for him and was now waiting for Mickie’s faculties to return. A desperate despair burned in his gut as the pain slowly subsided. He could not talk, or he would die. He needed time to plan, time to escape from this metal table. The robot would not wait forever. Could he lie? Perhaps, though Mickie’s understanding of his own circumstances were tenuous at best, he had no clue of what falsehood could be considered convincing.
‘I have provided time enough. Explain to me how you avoid my sight.’
Mickie groaned as a metal arm emerged once more and pressed into his thigh.
‘No, no, no. Please.’
The words were hardly more than a mumbled whisper but the reaction to them was sudden and violent. Charged roared briefly through his body and Mickie seized on the metal bed. It was only a brief shock, the attack ending in less than a moment.
‘Do not beg. Talk.’
There was still no trace of emotion from the robot, yet Mickie felt he had somehow angered the creature. He groaned in response, mind foggy from the repeated trauma.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean… I wanted to…’
Words were cut off as electricity tore through his body one more. Mickie did not even have the chance to cry out, pain wracking his body before darkness consumed him, giving peaceful release. But there would be no dreaming, no release from torment. Reality crash through his veins with energetic fire and Mickie gasped awake from a rest that never was.
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‘You will talk. You will not rest.’
He tried to respond but found it difficult to recall how to move his tongue and shape his lips.
‘Whaa-urrr.’
A camera lowered from the ring of lights to focus unblinking upon his face. Mickie attempted to peer back at it but found the world far to blurry for focussed sight.
‘I wish to know how. You have five seconds before I…’
The flat voice cut off partway through its threat, the camera lowering until it rested by his cheek.
‘Perhaps speech it not needed. I can make my own conclusions.’
Mickie’s addled mind struggled to make sense of his captor’s words. It appeared to have noticed something on the table, something that redirected its grinding pursuit for answers. A new robotic appendage was lowered gently down from the circle of lights. It was a simple clawed hand, built for gripping with three sharp fingers and a thicker thumb. With the utmost care a pointed brass fingertip reached past his face and dipped itself into a small puddle of bloody saliva that Mickie had coughed out. He could just barely make out the strange sight of his mess disappearing into the clawed finger, sucked away as if by a vacuum cleaner. All limbs retracted and silence prevailed as the robot processed its findings. Mickie was uncertain at the strange reaction. Had his captor seen the blood? It must have. The camera had focused directly upon his tainted spit before the arm came to collect it. He had no idea why the spit was visible when the rest of him hadn’t been, though the new behaviour from the robot was almost more unnerving than the taser pressed to his thigh had been.
‘Stange findings indeed little creature.’
The voice was still flat and without inflection, though eerily soft this time. As if the robot were not talking directly to him.
‘Initial conclusions require further refinement.’
The clawed hand shot from the light and slammed into Mickie’s open right palm, pinning the fingers apart. He cried out in shock at the sudden attack, trying to pull away but was hopeless before the metal strength of the robot and the straps pinning him to the table.
‘W-whaa… What arre yuu…’
His voice remained a slurred mess from the repeated electrocutions, unable to reason properly even if it would work on the emotionless machine before him.
‘Prevailing reason indicates physical connection to the subject is required to avoid detection.’
Something large and shiny glinted as it was lowered into the light. Another new arm. The most sinister to appear yet. Long fingers of scalpel steel that curled in on one another like impossibly long nails. This was a tool for cutting, and having heard the robot’s thoughts an animalistic panic gripped Mickie at the sight.
‘No, no, no, no, no. Get off me. Get off!’
He thrashed but the grip off his tormentor was immutable as it held his hand ready. That hand was his branded one. What if he lost his abilities with the hand. That would be the end. Mickie screamed at the robot but got no response as the scissor claws came closer, and closer, and then retracted back away. His hand had been left attached, in fact Mickie had felt no pain from the scalpels at all. Perhaps his cries had been heard and the robot would leave him whole. It was then that the clawed appendage released him and retracted upwards holding a dripping object in its grasp. A finger. He stared at the vanishing hand in confusion momentarily before turning to peer at his hand. There was no pain, and yet the table was coated by a growing pool of blood. Lifting his arm as best he could, Mickie found an absence where his pinkie should be. In its place was a red lump pulsing blood with rhythmic frequency. All that he could muster at the sight was a dazed look, while above him came a whirring and clinking as the thieving robot took account of its prize.
‘Curious. Blood indicates demonic origin, yet the flesh holds distinctly human characteristics.’
Mickie was too busy staring at his bloody hand as a deep throb set in to care about what his captor had to say. For its part the robot had little to say to him in return, content to voice its thoughts to a silent room.
‘Further analysis will be required. Diverse samples might aid in developing conclusions.’
That finally caught Mickie’s attention.
‘N-no not again. I’ll die. Not again.’
An uncaring mechanical lens lowered itself face to face with him.
‘If you will not answer me creature. I will pull pieces from you until I have a picture that I can see’
Mickie’s thought’s spiralled in despair. He would not talk. He could not. But then it would take from him. Take and take until he had nothing left. Perhaps if he only told some of it. Only enough that it would not cut him further apart. The camera in front of his face suddenly jolted, as if starting in surprise.
‘It would appear the administrator guards will not settle. I will have to intervene. I know it was you that set them loose. I will have that from you as well. Be certain of that creature.’
Then the camera stilled, and the voice was gone. Mickie stared in confused pain at the frozen lens before turning back to look at his bloody hand with a sickened stomach. While looking past the camera he caught sight of a metal arm darting from the light to jab his stomach with a disturbingly large needle. The appendage remained locked against his flesh, holding the needle in place far longer than would normally be required to deliver a shot. Mickie peered at it in confusion for several seconds before the world greyed to black and he lost himself to darkness once more.
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‘…id. Hey kid. Wake up. Come on.’
Consciousness came slowly this time, floating him from dark depths until Mickie could recall the waking world and snapped alert in terror. He was still strapped to the metal bed, body pinned so he could hardly move. The lights still glared down from above, though they were partially blocked at the moment, obstructed by a red figure staring into one of his eyes.
‘Miz-Mag?’
The demon straightened and slapped him on the nose.
‘By the stinking divine kid, you had me worried. I tell you I can’t leave you be for a second.’
Mickie was in no mood to banter.
‘Mag you got to get me out. The robot, it got me. It took my, it took my…’
He swallowed dryly, unable to finish the sentence. His companion on the other hand had no trouble speaking its mind.
‘It took your weenie pinkie, I know kid. I already put it back on for you, take a peek.’
Miz-Mag vaulted from his face to the table and stopped proudly beside Mickie’s bloody right hand. Cautiously turning to peer at the appendage, Mickie lifted his hand as best he could from the table and examined it. His finger had been roughly bound back into place by thick metal stitching. The line that delineated the point of its removal was red and raw, while the finger itself was distinctly grey and lifeless. Mickie felt a rising nausea at the Frankenstein sight.
‘I…’
He swallowed.
‘I don’t think its works like that.’
Miz-Mag gave him a frown.
‘What do you mean kid?’
‘I don’t think you can just, just stitch it back on like that. I don’t think that works.’
Mickie had heard that it was possible to reattach limbs when they got severed. But the grotesquery binding his finger back in place did not seem like the way to do it. His demon companion however appeared to have differing opinions on the matter.
‘Oh that. Made do with what I could get my hand on dear boy. Not much of anything but metal in the Mechanist’s lair. Besides, you’re juiced with the demon sauce now, you’ll be right in no time.’
With that Miz-Mag reach over to his finger and gave a pinch and a wiggle. Mickie’s eyes opened wide as he felt the rough treatment. It came through faint, as if the demon was lightly tapping his nail instead of violently jerking the finger about. The return of any sensation at all was astounding, and Mickie lay staring in speechless silence, forgetting momentarily about his current predicament. Reality returned in the form of a miniature demon to the face.
‘Stop gawping boyo. It’s time we got outta this hole. Damn bindings are made of metal, only way to bust them I can think of is with that blaster of yours.’
Mickie understood what the demon intended. He summoned the gun gingerly into his branded hand, careful to avoid his healing pinkie. Attempts to position the barrel against the steel pinning his forearm proved fruitless, however. A shot at the angles he could currently achieve would probably take half his torso off as well. Mickie began to feel a rising tension as a minute of fumbling slid by. If he took too long and the robot returned he would be skinned alive for answers to how he reattached his finger.
‘Mag, help me out, shoot this first one for me.’
The red demon gave him an odd look, as if the thought had not occurred to it. Small feet padded over to the handle of the weapon and Miz-Mag began to drag it into place. The small creature had to alternate between moving the barrel and the butt of the gun but eventually it had the weapon in a suitable position. The muzzle lay against the metal constraint facing up and away from Mickie’s body. Not completely safe, but they were already taking too long. Mickie needed to be out of the bed before his tormentor returned. With cautious apprehension Miz-Mag wrapped its arms around the handle and grasped the trigger. Mickie gave his companion a nod.
‘Do it.’
A bang was followed by blossoming pain as the lion headed barrel took a chunk from his arm while blowing the binding apart. He caught a blur of red alongside the shot as Miz-Mag was launched back off the table from the recoil of the unwieldy gun. Mickie tore his arm from the warped remains of the bindings and examined the damage. A wide but not overly deep wound greeted him, speckled with miniature fragments of steel. Nothing he could do about it now. Recalling the gun, Mickie set to work on the remaining constraints, his shots far more careful in positioning with an arm free. The metal binding his left arm went off perfectly, though he took a painful gash to the ribs and almost blew his left toe off. By the time his right leg was free Miz-Mag had returned to the metal table, clambering onto the surface with a groan. Mickie looked as bad as the demon felt, torn and bleeding from numerous wounds with a finger that still looked half dead on his right hand.
‘Last time I’m doing that kiddo, just about launched me out of the palace.’
Taking a moment to lift the battered demon to his shoulder Mickie stood slowly from the table. Free from the blinding light that had been his world, the surrounding room came into focus. It was a barren space, free of any furniture but his own bed and a screen affixed to the grey metal walls beside a door with no handle. A cell in both form and function. Before heading to the exit Mickie took a moment to turn and examine the region above the lights. The sight made him freeze in terror. Overhanging the bed was a metal monster. A sleeping beast of unnumerable curled metal limbs that emerged from the ceiling like a nightmarish burrowing insect. He saw a camera nestled within a menagerie of implements that would make any medieval torturer sweat. The creature was not entirely whole, however. Limbs were askew and a strange, sealed container had been broken open, voiding a viscous liquid onto the surrounding limbs where it dripped onto the floor by the table. Miz-Mag noticed his attention.
‘Thing had your finger in the jar, had to get up there and bust it out.’
Mickie did not respond, instead raising a trembling gun to the still body of his captor. The gun roared. The barrel thunked. He shot. It thunked. Again. Again. AGAIN. By the time his tormentor was little more than scrap spread throughout the cell Mickie was shuddering uncontrollably. He let out a sob and staggered away from the table and towards the door. Control, he had to get back in control. The body in the room might be gone but the robot was still out there. They had to escape its lair or Mickie had no doubt he would wind up in an even deeper hole.
‘You, uh, you alright kid?’
The red figure on his shoulder looked extremely disconcerted at sudden violence he had displayed. Mickie took a shaky breath and nodded, whipping his nose with his free hand.
‘We need a path out of here when we leave this room. You know this place?’
His voice was only slightly nasally when it emerged, Miz-Mag answered without hesitation.
‘Not a clue. One thing I learnt surviving in the palace kid. You don’t fuck with the Mechanist.’
Mickie took another steadying breath.
‘The Mechanist, it was the thing that had me?’
‘Yup, and it won’t be happy you slipped your chain. We got an advantage with it being so addicted to technology. Damn thing refuses to have anything organic wandering about its den. It is still going to put the work into catching us though.’
With a simple nod in response Mickie moved to the panel beside the door. The dispay was as unreadable as the ones in admin had been.
‘Can you work this thing?’
Miz-Mag sighed dramatically.
‘Not this one no. The robot uses its own private language throughout its lair. Not sure anyone but the Mechanist or its minions could work the door.’
With no alternatives, Mickie did not hesitate to blast the door where the latch might be. He nailed the point at which it met the frame only to be surprised as the metal bent but held at the blast. It took another two shots to punch through the latch, then a precious minute working open the dark metal slab enough to slip through. Coming into the hallway beyond Mickie found it to be no more than a brightly lit metal tunnel. The walls were the same dull grey of the cell, though they shined slightly in the reflected fluorescent light provided by tubes in the ceiling. With no heading in mind Mickie picked a direction at random and started to run as fast as he could in his injured state. Miz-Mag appeared to not take its lack of use well, fidgeting and mumbling on his shoulder. Rounding several bends at random Mickie eventually came face to face with a prowling machine. A beast with a long, segmented body, held up by metal legs joined to each of the bulbous sections. It was a huge steel centipede. Mickie stopped abruptly at the sight, hoping the sound of his passage had not alerted the creature. The robot had a wall panel open and was chittering face first inside as it worked the contents. The thing was so caught up with its work it appeared to not have noticed the light slaps of his running feet. Without even daring to breath Mickie backed up and slipped away down another hall. After another few turns, he found a door of bulky metal. The obstruction had no handles, same as the one to his cell, access appeared to be controlled exclusively through a panel set into the wall. Mickie examined the device and gave his resident demon an inquisitive look.
‘Sorry kid, same as the last.’
Without a path through the door, he would have to backtrack again. Another time delay when he could least afford it. Soon his escape would be discovered, either by the Mechanist itself or some robot minion. The door clunked heavily and rumbled open. Sound pounded into the hall, a cacophonous roar of overlapping noise that drowned out the surrounding hum of fluorescent lights. Mickie caught a glimpse of metal through the threshold and immediately pressed himself against a wall. Before the door had even finished sliding open the shiny head of a metal centipede shuffled through. Unlike that of its organic counterpart this beast had a single lens set amongst a ring of articulate limbs. The robot wandered by without even a glance towards Mickie’s place by the wall. It appeared the sound from the adjacent room made him all but imperceptible to mechanical senses.
The trailing body of the creature followed through the open door, preventing it from sliding shut. Mickie took the opportunity to sneak by, careful to avoid the limbs of the creature as it passed underfoot. Sound pounded through his ears as Mickie moved through a small passage and into a open warehouse. The space was easily four stories high, lit by massive floodlights handing from broad support beams. Large apparatuses filled every corner of the room, metal contraptions of pipes and cylindrical vessels supported by a forest of steel framework. Molten metal could be glimpsed pouring into vats where it was sectioned into moulds and pounded by huge steam driven hammers. To Mickie’s apprehensive eye however, the feature that stood out most was the volume of machines within the space. The room was lousy with them, centipedes crawling up pillars and along piping, spiders monitoring the molten metal flows. Mickie had to duck aside as a bulky bipedal robot stomped along a path, a huge pile of ore stored in a container protruding from its back. Looking through the heavy machinery to the bulky robot’s origin he noted what appeared to be a large tunnel opening into darkness. Crouched by a loading bay was a massive hexapedal robot, a truck on legs holding a tray full of metallic ore. Mickie started to weave through the facility towards the construct, drawn not by the machine but the huge passage leading out of the production room. It appeared that the ore processed in this facility was delivered via the large constructs through this tunnel. That meant he might be able to trace the supply line back out of the Mechanist’s lair.
Mickie almost stood on a scuttling spider bot and had to dart aside when an odd drone buzzed past, nearly taking his head off. The noise of the room was a perfect cover for his progress however, and Mickie made it to the loading bay without issue. The space was little more than a large concrete step that the transport crawlers could rest at and unload their cargo. The six-legged machines had a single limb upon their backs they used to pack the bipedal walkers with ore. Occasionally one of the haulers would lift its rear and jostle about to shift more unprocessed cargo into reach. Mickie made his way around the bustling hub of the dock to a quieter edge by the darkened tunnel. The drop to the concrete below was at least a few meters, a hard fall to be sure but Mickie could take it. Beyond the drop was the tunnel, and this did give him pause. A hole of impenetrable dark. With no light source he would be stumbling blind in there, making a ton of noise than any old robot would be able to pick up on.
‘By the blood kid, we got to move!’
Miz-Mag had shouted directly into his ear to be heard over the racket of ongoing production. Mickie followed the frantic gesture from his miniature companion and felt his blood run cold. Steel spiders and centipedes were combing the room in a wave, flowing over every surface, and checking every corner. They could only be doing one thing. Looking for him. The Mechanist knew he was out. Time was up. The speed of the machines was incredible to behold, like an avalanche he stood no chance of escaping. Mickie cast about for an something he could use to get away and noticed one of the hauling bots finishing up with its load. The arm on its back felt about an empty tray for any remaining ore while the hind legs jostled to shift any leftovers. An opportunity.
With no options left Mickie took off toward the oversized beetle, weaving around heavy bipedal robots carting loads of ore. He reached the edge of the dock as the beetle stood to leave, leaping for the rising edge of its tray. Poor timing and judgement were almost his undoing as Mickie slammed into the side of the creature and almost bounced away. He grasped the lip of empty storage as the six legs set into motion. Agony erupted from a finger that had not yet truly healed and fresh blood flowed onto his hand from the wound. With a desperate cry Mickie pushed past the pain to wrench himself up and over the side of the moving hauler and into the safety of the tray. He took a few moments to recover, lying panting on the shuddering steel. The transition from the light of the warehouse into the dark of the tunnel drew him into a painful seated position. Miz-Mag was already dangling at the rear of their escape vessel to get a view of the receding light. Mickie crawled over and scooped up the demon, holding it up to provide a better vantage. In the distance robots poured down into the loading bay and followed them into the dark. He was unsure of the constructs had somehow detected them and were following, or if the tunnel was the natural progression of their search. Either way the hauler on which they now sat was moving faster than the hunting monsters, which meant they were safe for the moment. Mickie patted the steel body of his ride gratefully, happy the robotic beetle did not seem to notice or mind their presence. He sat back against the wall of the tray, taking a moment to rest as the dark of the tunnel swallowed them and the clamour of the pursuing machines grew distant. His right hand throbbed in protest of its recent treatment and Mickie cradled the appendage gently as they were carried further into the dark.
With no light source to illuminate their passage, only the rhythmic steps of the beetle and the cool steel of its chassis provided any stimulation. Mickie was unsure how long they had been moving when a light source came into view in the distance. Having been starved for any visual sensation Mickie sat bolt upright at the approaching glow. Had they finally reached the source of the ore? Hopefully it was a location out of the Mechanist’s immediate influence and a step forward on the path up the castle. The glow grew along with a variety of sounds that put Mickie’s hair on end. The shriek of metal on metal was overlaid with the rumble of engines and a variety of other noises he could not place. They emerged into the light suddenly, the beetle upon which they sat did not slow with the change, trundling ever onwards. By the time Mickie’s eyes adjusted to the bright space they were already well inside, taking a direct path towards another tunnel in a far wall. Glancing about Mickie found the circular room to be some form of central hub for the transport beetles. All around him the robotic creatures moved with purpose, weaving through one another with a seamless ease.
It was strange to see creatures that lacked any apparent sensory apparatus move so precisely, never so much as brushing one another. Mickie guessed they must be able to communicate at the very least. In the centre of the room was a pit, a circular hole in the floor that Mickie realised was mirrored in the ceiling when he glanced up. As they approached this hole the engine roar overtook the clamour of beetle legs. From the ceiling a dark shape appeared, lowering itself slowly into the light. Mickie resisted swearing at the sight of it, bitting his cheek so hard to that he tasted copper. A huge sight, a familiar sight. One that had his and Miz-Mag’s undivided attention. Coming into the light of the hub was a mass of steel appendages, an almost circular glob of claws, cameras, blades and uncountable other tools. Just as the torture machine in his cell had been, this behemoth was not truly mobile, attached to a pillar of steel that rose in to the shadowy dark above. The roar of the engine ceased with the movement of the robot, and a soft feminine voice carried over the moving beetles as arms unfurled from the central mass.
‘My sweet children, if only you could speak. So limited you are, yet so beautiful in motion. You who encompass so much of our collective home. I am certain you would be able to tell me of the infection in our blood.’
Mickie dared not breath as the surrounding robots continued to crawl, oblivious to the eerily gentle tone of the Mechanist.
‘Perhaps one of you carry the filth even now. Your siblings followed the residue it leaked, yet the trail has ended.’
Panic gripped Mickie as he glanced about the metal tray and noted the blood from his injured finger coating numerous surfaces. If one of the cameras noticed the mess it would be the end for him. He gingerly grasped a section of the filthy rag serving as his shirt and attempted to wipe away the obvious marks. The Mechanist began to examine the bodies of the beetles with innumerable camera eyes, hunting for a sign.
‘I know you would not purposefully carry such filth dear children. You do not know of our plight. A failing that falls upon me alone.’
The voice that had been so flat and cold to Mickie was almost loving as it spoke to the beetles, metal arms traced shining frames as cameras roved the flowing masses. Mickie felt ice in his gut as one of the huge mechanical frames moved in his direction. There was too much blood, even with his cleanup efforts the machine would see.
‘To think the creature would escape its bonds. It should have been immobilised entirely, incapable of breaking the steel. Another secret I will need to extract.’
A chance came when another beetle wandered alongside theirs, heading in a similar direction. With Miz-Mag on his shoulder and his traitorous finger wrapped in his filthy shirt Mickie made a desperate leap to the nearby robot. He landed hard, though hoped the bang was drowned out by the clamour of moving machines. His old ride separated from his new one, moving to a neighbouring exit tunnel. As they closed in on safety it appeared the blood had gone unnoticed, and Mickie almost felt his actions had been unnecessary. There was a sudden strange hiss from the Mechanist’s mass and a huge, clawed arm shot forth to grasp the bloody beetle. The master machine plucked their previous ride like it was a true insect, drawing it towards the central mass. Darkness enveloped the stunned escapees as they entered the tunnel, followed by a cold voice.
‘Is this you creature, back in my grasp once more?’